Kejimkujik Watershed Habitats

We spent two days deep in the backcountry of Kejimkujik National Park placing the 4th and final geocaching series where park visitors can earn a patch & pins as they complete each series. Each series is composed of five locations that park users have to locate using a GPS.

The proposed route this year was 48 kms of hiking and/or biking across both the northern & southern portions of the park. As with the previous three series, park users can plan their route using the three main modes of transportation: hiking, biking & paddling. This year’s route focused on hiking & biking.

Day 1

This was our hiking day, three locations were in the northern part of the park where bikes are not allowed on the trails. The first big hike was a 10 km out & back along Big Dam Lake. We first hiked along Hardwoods & Hemlocks trail, which is a nicely groomed trail. Once we reached the end of that trail, the trail turns into a footpath and continues alongside of Big Dam Lake. This section of trail was the most scenic in terms of forest transitions.

The next trail was a short 1 km walk along the Mersey River on the Flowing Waters trail. A popular section where fishing occurs a lot. The third trail was another quick hike around 1 km in a wetland habitat next to Jakes Landing: Rogers Brook.

At this point, our GPS said we approached 13 kms of hiking, now it was time to get to our overnight destination to spend the night. We decided to book the backcountry Yurt which was along the biking route. Starting at Eel Weir, we biked in 4 ams to the Yurt. I was using a mountain bike & BOB Yak cargo trailer to haul my gear. Once we arrived at the Yurt, we prepared our supper and enjoyed the evening relaxing inside the structure, not worrying about getting wet.

Day 2

The next morning came by pretty fast and we were up and on our bikes, heading down the road towards Poison Ivy Falls. A kilometre later, we approached the new WiBoWill cabin being built. This will be a rental accommodation managed by Friends of Keji association. It looked like it was as big as Mason Cabin, so for groups, this would be a great option.

We continued to Poison Ivy Falls, doing this section with mountain bikes is certainly recommended as you cover a lot of ground. After all the return distance back to our car would be 35 kms. This section of the park is remote and you feel it as you travel between the lakes and the old logging roads. At the end of the day, we spent 15 hours on the trail and logged a little more than 48 kms.

Special thanks to Cyclesmith for providing the mountain bike & cargo trailer which made this adventure possible. http://cyclesmith.ca

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About Jim Cyr

Exploring Nova Scotia with a constellation of satellites to guide me along the way. Producing hiking, outdoors, local drink & food videos, you can find Jim's contributions on novascotiablogs.com and a few other places. Jim carries a Delorme inReach for all of his outdoor adventures.